St. Senan’s Hospital opened as the Enniscorthy District Lunatic Asylum for the Insane and Poor of Mind in 1868. The facility continued to deliver psychiatric care until its closure in 2013.

A former employee once recounted an experience that he had while working the night shift on one of the wards. It was fairly typical of its time – a long, fairly bland room with a row of patient beds on each side and a room at the far end that was kept locked during the night. Beyond that was an identical ward that also had access to the middle room, and again the door was locked at night from the other side. On this particular night, he happened to note that there was a patient standing inside the locked room looking out at him through the window and across the darkened ward. He could identify who it was by the single light that was routinely left on in the locked room. He walked through the ward, passed the sleeping patients and unlocked the door to the middle room, expecting to be greeted by the patient he had just seen. But the room was completely empty. Furthermore, the door on the opposite side of the room was still firmly locked. He unlocked the door and crossed through the adjoining ward towards the nurse’s station, and asked why the patient in question was wandering about at that hour and how he had accessed the middle room. But the nurse looked confused and informed him that the patient he had reportedly seen, had in fact died a couple of weeks before.

The hospital also had a haunted stairwell to the rear of the building. Staff would often report feeling a chill on the stairs, even when the ambient temperature was warm. Small hairs would rise on the back of necks in this area, and many would choose to avoid taking this route when possible.

A mysterious grey lady was also reported, and on one occasion she appeared in front of two witnesses. While nobody knows her true identity, some speculate that she may have once been a nurse or perhaps a matron.